Thanks to Massive Budget Cuts, California Gets Sued

by Sara Bernard · 2010-05-23 03:58:00 UTC
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The bad news: California has made astronomical funding cuts to public education. The good news: A coalition of students and education groups are fed up, and they're taking the governor and the state to court.

The lawsuit, Robles-Wong v. California, was filed on May 20th by over sixty individuals, nine school districts, and several education groups including the California School Boards Association and the California State PTA. It argues that the current budget cuts are simply unconstitutional and seeks a revamp of the whole process. A massive $17 billion has been carved out of state funding over the past few years, with several billion more in the works, making California rank 47th in the nation in per-pupil education spending.

Apparently, thirty-three states have already been involved in such "adequacy" lawsuits, as they're called, where plaintiffs accuse the state of not providing enough funds for public education to meet its own academic standards. Plaintiffs in this case are demanding that the state link funding to need so that poorer school districts can have a fighting chance at making any kind of academic gain.

To me, this rings pretty true -- from the unfunded federal mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act to the unfunded mandates of state academic standards, education professionals simply can't boost proficiency in anything if they don't have enough funding for adequate numbers of teachers, facilities, and other vital resources. Kudos to the thousands of people who've done more than grumble about funding cuts. Maybe, just maybe, their ire and their actions are going to make a difference.

Photo credit: (nz)dave

Sara Bernard is a former staff writer and multimedia producer for Edutopia magazine.
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